Micro-luminescence spectroscopy on multicrystalline silicon

The luminescence of silicon has been used for many applications such as lifetime measurements and defect characterization in multicrystalline silicon for solar cells. In this paper we demonstrate new applications of luminescence spectroscopy for the characterization of multicrystalline silicon which are based on a very high spatial resolution in the order of one ?m. These applications are the detection of small metal precipitates, the qualitative measurement of internal stress and X-ray Excited Optical Luminescence for correlating of X-ray fluorescence measurements with the minority carrier diffusion length.